Exosomes and EVs in tumor communication Lab

Welcome to Ingrid Struman laboratory

Exosome in tumor communication Lab

Figure from Njock et al JEV 2022 illustrating the role of exosomes in TAM recrutment into the tumor

Blood vessels are formed by vasculogenesis (differentiation of endothelial cell from progenitors) and angiogenesis (formation of blood vessels from pre-existing ones). The process of blood vessel formation is critical for embryonic development, growth and reproduction. Undesired or excessive vasculogenesis/angiogenesis contributes to numerous disorders including cancer, retinopathy... In cancer progression, in order to grow belong a size of few mm3, tumors should develop new blood supply. This neo-capillary formation also constitutes a route for dissemination of metastases. Preventing vasculogenesis/angiogenesis has thus emerged as an attractive therapy to combat disease and the search for novel modulators of these processes is receiving a lot of attention.

What we do

The general goal of the research of the "Angio team" is to understand mechanism of angiogenesis in order to develop new antiangiogenic inhibitors for therapeutic purpose. Researches are conducted to pursue the evaluation inhibitors of angiogenesis previously identified by us and to discover new ones suitable for the treatment of angiogenesis and/or lymphangiogenesis-related diseases such as cancer, retinopathy...

Our lasts researches focused on the role of microRNAs in cell-cell communication via exosome.

MicroRNAs are small non coding RNA that repress a variety of gene at the post-transcriptional level. During the last few years, numerous studies have revealed that microRNAs stably exist in different body fluids, including plasma, saliva, urine and amniotic fluids. Those microRNAs circulate in extracellular vesicles (EVs) called exosomes protected from endogenous RNAse. Exosomes are 30 to 100 nm in diameter and released from many different cell types under both normal and pathological conditions. Recently, a few studies showed that exosomes containing microRNAs are secreted from donor cells and can be transferred to recipient cells in which microRNAs can have functions. The scientific community is now focusing its interest of those secretory microRNAs which can be now considered as key molecules in this novel mechanism of cell-cell communication

Objectives are :

Based on the success of our previous work (see publication list) aiming to identify miRNAs exchanged between tumour cell and endothelial cells we have initiated several projects in the same line of research.

We have 3 topics

1.    EVs and non coding RNA in tumor communication

2.    Mechanism of RNA export in EVs

3.    Therapeutic delivery via EVs

Ingrid's team in 2025